


To Love Me

by SilverRowan_Ivy630951



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Boys Kissing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Captain America Steve Rogers, Dorks in Love, Hurt Steve Rogers, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, Neck Kissing, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, TW: mentions of injury to past bed partners, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25819021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverRowan_Ivy630951/pseuds/SilverRowan_Ivy630951
Summary: Almost since they met, Natasha has set Steve up on date after date with women. But, now, Steve is just done.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 20
Kudos: 142





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [BetteNoire (WeAreWolves)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAreWolves/pseuds/BetteNoire). Log in to view. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for talk about accidentally hurting past bed partners. 
> 
> As always, feel free to let me know if you see any errors in here. Thanks and hope you enjoy.

“Natasha. Stop!”

Steve’s angry voice rang clearly throughout the common room as Bucky jerked to a halt in the doorway. No one else was around right then so Bucky had to figure that Steve had thought he and Nat were alone. Or else, he just hadn’t cared.

He didn’t want to interrupt but he couldn’t help listening. He couldn’t make himself retreat and give them privacy. Steve was his best friend and, though they’d been separated for decades, his anger, his hurts, his feelings, they all still pulled at him. So he stayed back, listening.

“Stop trying to set me up!” Steve took an intimidating step closer to Natasha. Bucky had never thought he’d see the Black Widow give ground when she thought she was right. He never thought he’d see uncertainty on her face when it wasn’t faked. But he saw it now.

Bucky knew—hell, every one of them knew that she’d been doing her best to find Steve a date for the past few years. Almost since they’d met, she’d set him up with woman after woman, both SHIELD agent and civilian. But Steve was apparently done with it all.

Natasha tried to speak, to defend her case, or maybe to make him see reason. But Steve didn’t let her even get a full word out.

“No, Nat!” he said, making an angry cutting motion with his hand. He took another step closer, towering over her, just this side of threateningly. His hands clenched into trembling fists and it worried Bucky. Not because he thought Steve was going to take a swing at her—he would never do that—but because of what it said about his feelings at the moment.

With his advance, Natasha had almost plastered herself against the wall. Her palms pressed flat against it down by her sides, fingers splayed apart. There was a hint of shock in her eyes as she watched Steve.

“No. You don’t know what it’s like to be me. You don’t know what it feels like to be set up on date after date after date. You don’t know what it’s like to be _Captain America_.” He all but spat those words, like they were something distasteful.

“No one wants me.” This time, his words were a staccato, each one drenched in fury. “And I don’t want someone who doesn’t want _me_.”

Natasha tried again to speak but, again, Steve just steamrolled over her. “Every single person you’ve had me meet? They all expected a date with Captain America. But do you know what? Captain America wasn’t made for love. He was made for killing.”

Steve turned away then. His voice suddenly softened into a sad and painful thing. “Do you know, the last time I had sex with a woman, I broke her? Yeah, she came. But so did I. And she ended up at the hospital with her pelvis broken on both sides because of it. Because of me.”

Behind his back, Natasha’s face crumpled for a moment, the beginnings of tears making her eyes glimmer before she threw up a mask and pushed them away—all the better to not let Steve knew how much his words affected her.

“So I thought I’d stick to men. I like them well enough.”

Bucky couldn’t help but suck in a breath of surprise. That was definitely something he hadn’t known. Even without all his memories, he was certain he hadn’t known that.

With his sudden noise, Steve looked up and met his eyes. But instead of shutting down, instead of stopping, he kept talking. “I thought that I would have better luck with men, with people who weren’t quite so…delicate.”

It was hard, watching the pain fill his face as he lowered his gaze to the floor. Bucky made himself stay where he was. This was important. If Steve needed to finish it, Bucky would let him. He hoped Natasha would, too.

“Henry had to leave the USO tour because of me. I wasn’t as careful with him, you see. Not like I had been with Audry. He ended up with a cracked pelvis and a crushed humerus.”

He turned back to Nat who could no longer keep her emotions from showing.

“Do you know how much pressure it takes to crush a bone? Literally crush it, not break it? I do. I can’t tell you a number, but I know how much in strength.” He was silent for a moment, staring at his now open palm before him. Then, quietly, “I wish I didn’t.”

A tear slipped from Natasha’s eye. Bucky was having a hard time keeping his own from falling.

“So, please,” Steve whispered brokenly as he dropped his hand and looked back up at Nat. “Stop setting me up on dates. It only leads to hurt.”

Bucky could no longer hold himself back. He took a step forward, wanting to soothe, to comfort.

But, turning, Steve only jerked his head in a no. Without meeting either his or Natasha’s eyes, Steve edged past Bucky, avoiding any and all touch. Without another word, he disappeared.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for talk about accidental injury/death of past bed partners and some heavy making out.

Bucky hesitated for a second before opening the door and walking into the apartment he shared with Steve. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d find, what kind of mood Steve would be in. It had been a few hours since the…talk, for lack of a better term, in the common room.

When he glanced around, he saw Steve sitting on the couch. But his knees were folded up like he was trying to make himself smaller. On the coffee table, there was an abandoned drawing pad and a few pencils. They lay haphazardly, like they’d been tossed there out of boredom or frustration. With the talk that morning, Bucky would bank on it being the latter.

Trying to ignore his own need to immediately wrap Steve up in a cocoon of warm blankets in favor of figuring out what he actually needed, Bucky went to go get a couple glasses of iced tea. He set them on coasters on the coffee table and settled a short distance from him on the couch.

Steve didn’t look at him.

Bucky let the silence linger, feeling it out. Eventually, he settled himself against Steve’s side. He hoped it would provide comfort and support without smothering. Steve had always hated being smothered, even when he’d been nothing more than a sick slip of a kid. After a minute, Steve shifted and lifted his arm to put it around Bucky. It soothed something in him. Steve’s touch always had.

“You know,” Bucky said, resting his head against his shoulder. “I have the same problem.”

It took another minute, but Steve eventually looked over at him. There was a silent question in his gaze.

“I hurt people, too.” This time, it was Bucky who couldn’t meet Steve’s eyes as he whispered the words. “Hydra, when they first broke me. They tried to have me seduce people, to gain their trust or find out their secrets. But it never worked because I was too strong. I always accidentally hurt them. Or I accidentally killed them. They learned very quick not to give me those kinds of missions. I haven’t had sex in…well, in a long time.”

Steve said nothing but his arm tightened around Bucky.

“And now, with this…” Bucky held up his metal arm. He studied it, knew Steve did, too. “I’m afraid to have sex with someone. I have my mind back now, but I’m still too strong.”

They sat in silence as time slowly ticked by. After ten or fifteen minutes, Bucky curled his body up and tucked himself more firmly into Steve’s side.

“If…” He hesitated, unsure if he could actually speak the words. He wanted to, but he didn’t know if it would make things worse.

“What?” Steve asked. It had to be the first word he’d spoken since that morning because his voice sounded rough and unused.

Bucky took a slow breath, trying to still his shaky insides. “If… If I asked you something, would you promise not to hate me for it? Would you still be my friend, even if you’re angry with me?”

The expression Steve shot him, when Bucky gathered the courage to look, could have best been described as _are you an idiot?_ “Bucky,” he said. His voice was so full of exasperation that it, oddly enough, made him want to laugh. “There is nothing you could ever say, ask, think, feel, or do that would make me not want to be your friend. You’re my _best_ friend. Even when you were brainwashed and trying to kill me, you were still my best friend. There is literally _nothing_ in the world that could change that.”

With that, Bucky took a chance, hoping with everything in him that Steve’s words would still be true in a minute. “Would— Could you— I didn’t kn—” Bucky internally screamed his frustration with himself. Then he forced the words to come out. “Could you ever see yourself w—” He turned his face away, unable to look Steve in the eye as he asked. “Could you ever see yourself…with me?”

Steve’s quick intake of breath was bad enough. But the long silence that followed was so much worse.

Bucky started to pull back, to pull away, but Steve’s arm around him suddenly tightened and locked him in place. Then a large hand touched his cheek and turned his face.

“Look at me,” Steve said quietly. “Please.”

Slowly, Bucky raised his eyes. He took in Steve’s wide eyes and slightly flushed face.

“I’m— I’m sorry,” Bucky stammered. He’d ruined everything. Of course he had. He should’ve just kept his mouth shut. His heart pounded even harder than before. “I didn’t—I never knew you liked guys or I probably would’ve asked a long time ago. But I see now that would’ve been… I won’t— I’m sorry. I won’t ask agai—”

His overflow of words was cut off by a sudden kiss. It was a hard press, at first, but quickly gentled. He would never admit it, but Bucky squeaked in surprise at the first touch. But soon his eyes closed.

Steve’s tongue swiped out to lick at his bottom lip and Bucky couldn’t help but give a little moan. The second his lips parted, Steve swept in. It was, all at once, fierce, gentle, and kind. And _hot_.

In all his fractured memories, Bucky couldn’t think of a single time that a simple kiss had ignited his body like it was now. His cock hardened and his breathing picked up. Before he knew it, he’d used his left arm to press Steve’s legs down. With his lap now open, Bucky wiggled his way onto it.

Steve moaned and it caused everything in Bucky to burn even hotter. One kiss turned into another, which then led to more.

When Steve broke away, breathing hard, he moved to place little pecks against Bucky’s jaw. Slowly, with the stubble that he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning rasping against Bucky’s, Steve moved from his jaw to his ear, then down his neck.

When teeth bit into his neck, Bucky’s hips thrust forward like a string had been tugged sharply.

“Wait…” Fuck. Bucky couldn’t believe he was saying this. He couldn’t believe he was _stopping_ this. “Steve.” It came out as another moan before he forced himself to make another effort to pull his brain back up into his head from his dick. “Fuck. Steve, we should, we should talk about this.”

With one last sucking bite that caused one last instinctive thrust of his hips, they pulled back from one another.

He and Steve matched, Bucky thought almost dazedly. They both had kiss-swollen lips, flushed cheeks, and were breathing like they’d just run a marathon at supersoldier speeds. And they both were hard enough to pound nails into vibranium.

“It’s you,” Steve said before either of them had fully regained their breath. “It’s always been you that I wanted. But I was so small and skinny and always sick. And you always went out on dates. I thought you couldn’t possibly want me. So I never said anything.”

“I liked going out on dates but I always—” Bucky snapped his mouth shut just in time.

Or maybe not. “You always what?” Steve asked. His voice was low and gravelly, still heavily tinged with desire.

Bucky bit his lip nervously before looking him in the eye and telling the truth. “I liked them. But I loved you. I still do.”

After a surprised intake of breath, Steve reached forward and wrapped his hand around the back of Bucky’s neck. The next second, Steve’s mouth was on his giving him the slowest, most tender kiss he could imagine.

But it was short and, when Steve pulled back, he rested his forehead against Bucky’s. Bucky closed his eyes.

“I love you, too, Buck. I always have and I always will.”

“Does that mean,” Bucky asked, his heart picking up speed as he leaned back a few inches to gaze into Steve’s eyes, “that we can go have sex now?”

Steve hesitated.

For a moment, Bucky thought the answer would be no. He prepared himself to wait. Knowing that he loved Steve and that Steve loved him back, he thought he’d be prepared to wait forever. But his mind unconsciously ticked back to the conversation that morning, to the one a little bit ago. He wondered if he didn’t know the problem.

“Steve,” he murmured softly, wrapping his metal hand around the back of Steve’s neck, squeezing hard enough to hurt a normal human. But not to hurt Steve. “I’m like you. You can’t hurt me. _We_ can’t hurt _each other_.”

The instant the words were out of his mouth, Steve’s shoulders relaxed. His smile was like a sunrise. With a quick peck on Bucky’s lips, Steve wrapped his arms tight around his waist. “Then, fuck, yeah, we’re going to go have sex.” He stood up.

It caused Bucky to squeak and wrap his legs tight around Steve’s hips but he wouldn’t change a thing.

With sure-footed confidence and with love in his eyes, Steve carried Bucky to his bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a thing in _Lucky Seven_ by BetteNoire (WeAreWolves) <https://archiveofourown.org/works/7033105/chapters/16002481>
> 
> Specifically this from chapter 1: ‘Truth be told, though, he was scared of having intense feelings for someone, of being in a position where he'd really let go during sex. He could badly hurt his partner.’
> 
> I read that and sat back thinking: _well, fuck_.


End file.
